


Marked

by Mintaka14



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Endgame Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, F/M, They're all legal age, beer in a bar, everybody's friends, luka has tatts, mari's a mess, past adrienette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26117878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mintaka14/pseuds/Mintaka14
Summary: Luka has a new tattoo that Marinette didn't know about? Aren't friends supposed to tell each other about stuff like that?
Relationships: Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 41
Kudos: 261





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Marinette and friends are all in their first year of tertiary education, so they're legal age for getting into a club for a gig and ordering beer. Hope you enjoy this. It's Lukanette fluff.

**Marked**

**A Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction**

**By Mintaka14**

Luka had a new tattoo. Marinette could see it winding around his wrist in the stage lights. He hadn’t told her he was getting this one, and from where she was sitting in the club, she couldn’t make out what it was.

On stage, Rose was screaming out the lyrics with enthusiastic intensity, and the band was getting into it. Their road trip to the summer Hellfest music festival had obviously inspired them, and most of their friends had managed to make it to Kitty Section’s gig that night for a change. Marinette could see Alix leaning against the bar on the other side of the club, and Mylene dancing at the edge of the stage with her eyes on Ivan’s drumming, her braids flashing all colours of the rainbow in the spotlight that swept over the crowd for a moment. Kim hadn’t managed to get time off work – it was getting harder to find time in between first year tertiary classes and courses and part time jobs when everyone was free - but Nino was there somewhere, tinkering with the sound equipment. Marinette’s attention, however, was fixed on Luka and those beautiful strong hands of his, and the black lines of his new tattoo.

Alya must have seen the frown, because she stopped bouncing and screaming along with the music to lean across the bar table.

“Girl, what’s wrong? You look upset.”

Marinette shook her head and mustered up a smile. The tattoo did explain why he’d kept the sleeves of his hoodies stretched down over his fingertips the last few times they’d hung out together, but the sleeveless shirt he was wearing certainly wasn’t concealing any of his tatts, or anything else much, now and Marinette wasn’t sure whether to feel hurt or not that he obviously hadn’t wanted to tell her about this new one.

Luka didn’t have to tell her everything, they were just friends. Still just friends, in spite of all the time she took refuge on the _Liberty_ listening to him play, or curled up on the floor beside him complaining about her latest design assignment and giggling over his stories about recording with Jagged Stone. Still just friends, no matter how much she’d been working up the courage to ask for more.

Alya followed the line of her frown and rolled her eyes.

“Mari, when are you going to just ask him already? You broke up with Adrien weeks ago and you were only dating for a couple of months anyway, what are you waiting for?”

“I don’t want Luka to think he’s just a rebound,” Marinette said a little stubbornly. Her eyes dropped to the glass in her hands. “I will when I’m ready.”

“Jeez, Mari, it’s been four weeks and,” Alya narrowed a stare at her, “I’ve seen the way you watched him before you and Adrien ended things, no matter how hard you were trying to fool yourself. I’m your friend – I know you - and Luka’s not rebound anything.”

Marinette raised her eyes to the stage again. Luka flicked his sweaty blue-tipped hair out of his eyes and flashed a smile that found her even in the strobing darkness.

“I’m betting,” Alya whisper-shouted over the noise, “that’s he’s just holding back because he’s waiting for you to get over Adrien. You need to tell him you’re already there. You need to go for it!”

Marinette watched his hands move over his guitar strings with a virtuosity that left her dizzy and a little warm, and those new black lines wrapped around his wrist hypnotically. She buried her head in her arms.

“Alya, I know you’re trying to help, but I just can’t!”

“What’s holding you back here? I know you have a hard time when it comes to telling a guy you like him – jeez, it took you how many years before you got to date Adrien? – but at least you can string a sentence together around Luka, so that’s a good start."

“It’s not that,” Marinette groaned, and she felt Alya’s hand on her back, rubbing a soothing pattern. “It’s… Adrien was just a crush. If I mess things up with Luka it’s going to kill me.”

“Oh, honey,” Alya sighed sympathetically. “The boy’s crazy about you.”

“I told him I was over Adrien,” she sighed into her arms, and Alya had to lean forward to hear her. “And he didn’t say anything.” _And then he went out and got a tattoo that he obviously didn’t want to tell her about._

Mylene slid onto a stool, the beads in her braids clicking faintly as she tilted a concerned look at Marinette.

“What’s wrong, Marinette?” she asked, and Marinette straightened, forcing herself to smile.

“She’ll be fine,” Alya said, patting Marinette’s back again. “She’s just over-thinking things again.”

“Did something happen at Hellfest over the summer?” Marinette asked Mylene. “You guys came back and Luka seemed kind of out of it – “ _Silencer_ out of it “- and it felt like he was avoiding me those first few weeks.”

Mylene gave Marinette an odd look and opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, then thought better of it and reached for the jug of beer in the middle of the table.

“He’s talking to you now, though, isn’t he?” she asked instead.

“Well, yes, but… it’s different now. Something’s been weird with him since you guys got back. He just hasn’t told me much about the trip, that’s all,” Marinette muttered.

“So what happened with you and Adrien?” Mylene asked abruptly, and Marinette startled at the sudden subject change. “I mean, we got back from Hellfest and you were with Adrien, and then you weren’t, and I never did hear what the full story was.”

Marinette pulled a face and shrugged.

“Lu- _you_ were all away over the summer, and I was here with the Gabriel internship on my own –“

“Hey!” Alya protested. “I was here.”

Marinette didn’t point out that between Nino and chasing Ladybug stories and all of Alya’s other plans, Marinette had gone weeks at a time without seeing Alya at all except for brief texts and briefer video chats. Most of that summer, Adrien had been the only familiar face she’d seen.

“I wound up hanging out with him at Gabriel, and then Adrien asked me out, and I guess I was just so used to the idea that I had a crush on him that I said yes. And we had fun. It was fine, but I always felt like he was looking for something and it wasn’t me. It turned out that what I was looking for wasn’t him either. There just wasn’t any spark there.”

Alya gave her a smirk and tilted a significant glance towards the stage, but Marinette studiously ignored her.

“We’re still good friends. And Adrien’s already dating someone he met modelling.”

“Black hair, part-Asian, about so tall –“ Alya levelled her hand near the top of Marinette’s head and rolled her eyes at Mylene. “Kagami, Marinette, now this Louise… I’m telling you, the boy has a type.”

Marinette sighed. “Alya –“

“And after all that time chasing Adrien,” Alya kept going, leaning conspiratorially towards Mylene, “our girl here wasn’t cut up even a little bit when they broke up. Rumour has it, she’s already got her eyes on someone else.”

“Alya!” Marinette said more firmly, and Alya threw her hands up. “And you were the one pushing me to say yes when Adrien asked me out.”

Alya shrugged unrepentantly. “At least you won’t have any ‘what ifs’ now. And neither will… anyone else.”

“Alya!”

“Fine, fine, your secret’s safe with me,” the reporter grumbled, but Marinette didn’t quite know what to make of the slightly alarmed look Mylene gave her.

“So who’s this mystery man?” Mylene asked. She took another swig of beer, and it looked like she was trying too hard to be casual. “Or woman. Not assuming anything.”

Marinette groaned, and Mylene followed the involuntary line of her gaze to the stage and Luka.

“Ohhh. I see.” Mylene’s mouth twitched, and she patted Marinette on the shoulder. “It’ll be… fine. You’ll be fine. I’m sure it’ll all work out.”

Mylene slid off her stool and almost scurried to join Alix at the bar. Marinette couldn’t make out what was going on, but she did hear the shout of laughter even over the pounding bass and the noise of the club.

Mylene and Alix were working their way back to the table, and as they got closer, Marinette could hear Alix saying, “So let me get this straight. You guys get back from Hellfest, Marinette’s dating Adrien, and she wonders why Luka was moping around like someone stole his favourite guitar. Then Marinette breaks up with Adrien, and coincidentally Luka’s mood improves. And now she’s worried that Luka might not be into her, so she can’t ask him out?”

Alix slid onto a stool and stabbed a finger at Alya. “I am _not_ going through any more schemes to help Mari get a date. I’m too old for this shit.”

Mylene giggled. “You won’t need to.”

Marinette frowned, but she didn’t have time to respond, because the band was building up to the big finish. Marinette turned her attention back to stage and let herself get swept up in the screaming and the cheering that filled the club. She screamed along with everyone else, her voice going hoarse and the glasses on the table rattling as she stood up to throw her hands in the air. Luka's eyes caught hers for a moment, and his grin widened.

Once Kitty Section was offstage the shouting died down until the band reached their table and everything dissolved into noisy congratulations and jokes. Luka slid in beside her, flashing that smile at her and Marinette's thinking derailed completely.

She jumped a little when Nino slid a tray full of drinks on the bar table. He dropped a kiss on Alya’s mouth and wiggled his eyebrows at Marinette.

“What’d I miss?” he said cheerfully, and Marinette looked up to find Alya leaning her chin in her hands, watching her closely with a knowing smile.

“Oh, just Marinette being Marinette,” Alya said innocently.

“And that’s everything amazing,” Luka added, and Marinette could feel his shoulder pressed against her. When she dared to look, he was giving her that soft look that could melt her bones.

Luka reached across the table to grab a bottle of water, and she found herself staring at the seemingly random patterns of the mystery tattoo wrapped around his wrist. She knew that pattern. She knew it like the back of her hand, and suddenly it felt like all the air had been stolen from her lungs.

“Mari?” someone was asking, as if from a long way away.

She felt a hand on her shoulder – _Luka’s hand_.

“Marinette, are you okay?”

Marinette focused on his hand, his tattoo, so close to her cheek as she tried to get her breathing back under control. She could see the moment when he made the connection. His hand pulled away slightly, then dropped back.

“Oh shit, Mari, I meant to cover it up. It doesn’t have to mean anything more than you want it to. I’m not trying to… I just –“

Her own hand came up to trace the pattern of her secret signature on his skin, and he sucked in a breath at the touch. Their friends, the club, the smoke and the noise all faded into irrelevance. Her clothes her designs, everything she made bore that signature, and now it was inked on Luka.

She sewed that into every piece she’d ever made, including the hoodie Luka usually wore. Every design sketch had that signature worked into it somewhere. Everything she’d created and owned and was most proud of.

He’d signed her name on his wrist.

He couldn’t have made it clearer where he stood.

“What if I want it to mean everything?” she whispered, and he leaned in slowly, carefully, to rest his forehead against hers.

“Then I’m yours,” he whispered back. “I’m marked, and I’m yours.”

It was so easy to lean in that little bit closer, to close the distance between them and kiss him, and this time she was the one who stole his breath away.


	2. Signed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So why did Luka get that tattoo?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marked was going to be a standalone, but then this short bit of fluff sort of wrote itself.

**Signed**

**A Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction**

**By Mintaka14**

The lights from the cabin windows made patterns and shadows across the deck in the growing darkness, and Luka could hear Juleka and Rose giggling about something below deck over the soft wash of the water against the _Liberty’s_ sides. Marinette was curled up in his lap, her fingers twined with his and her other hand gently tracing her signature on his wrist. Luka closed his eyes, losing himself in the moment and the feel of his girlfriend in his arms. _His girlfriend!_ How on earth did that happen? There were moments when he was almost afraid to believe it.

He didn’t even realise he was humming until Marinette looked up at him.

“I don’t know that one,” she said. “It doesn’t sound like one of yours.”

“It’s just something I heard and liked at the summer festival. It was a new band, but they’ve got some pretty good stuff.”

Her hand stilled on his arm. “Oh?” Those dark lashes of hers fell over her blue eyes. “You never talked much about Hellfest.”

There was a long pause, and she started tracing his tattoo again.

“Mylene said you guys had a good time, but I always got the impression that something happened there that you didn’t want to talk about.” She sounded casual and disinterested, but Luka knew his Marinette, and he shifted a little so that he could see her face more clearly.

“Nothing happened at Hellfest. It was fun, it was fine, and I missed you every day we were there. And then we got home,” he shrugged. “You were dating Adrien.”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and he hugged her closer.

“Don’t be. I just wanted you to be happy. It’s what I’ve always wanted for you, even if it couldn’t be with me.”

“It was one of those dumb things that seemed like a good idea at the time. Alya can be very persuasive.”

Luka chuckled at her dry tone.

“But I broke up with Adrien,” Marinette added. “As soon as you all got back, I knew I’d made a mistake and we ended it, but I told you I was over him and you didn’t say anything. I thought maybe you’d met someone at Hellfest, and I’d missed my chance.”

“Sweetheart, I was trying to not blurt out _Marry me._ I know I can be kind of… intense sometimes,” he said deprecatingly, and Marinette looked up at him through her lashes.

“So can I,” she said. “I’m just more –“ she threw up her arms and made a panicked noise “- than you tend to be.”

“But even I know that proposing to the woman you adore five seconds after she’s broken up with her boyfriend is a little much. Jules and Ma couldn’t get a straight word out of me for hours afterwards.”

He couldn’t see her face, but the tips of her ears were adorably red.

“And tattooing my name on your wrist was what exactly?”

It was his turn to flush red.

“Chaotically impulsive?” he suggested, and Marinette huffed a laugh. “Honestly, I hadn’t planned on you seeing it. It was just something that felt right, and then I realised afterwards how awkward it might make things for you.”

“But why _that_?” She was still tracing the lines of her name on his skin and it was very distracting. “You’ve got tattoos for Juleka and your mum, but not their names. You could have done something more subtle and I never would have known.”

“I wasn’t feeling very subtle, and given the way things worked out, I’m kind of glad I didn’t.”

He sighed, hiding his face in her hair for a moment. This was going to sound so stupid, but he’d never let that stop him with Marinette before.

“Real reason? I see you every time I play. You’ve inspired most of the music that’s come from this lately.” He held up the hand marked with her signature. “I thought it was only fair that you were credited with your creations.”

“Luka!” she pouted at him, and he couldn’t resist kissing that gorgeous mouth of her. “You’re such a sap.”

He cuddled her a little closer, and smiled into her hair.

“As long as I’m your sap, I can live with that.”

She kissed his pulse underneath her signature and he felt his breath catch. And then she looked up at him with a mischievous light in those blue eyes of hers.

“So,” she said. “ _Marry me_ , huh?”

“Anywhere, any time,” he said without thinking, but it was true and he wouldn’t take it back.

Her smile grew brighter.

“I’m going to hold you to that, one of these days.”

There were no words, no lyrics, no music that could say what he wanted to say to her in that moment. All he could do was close the distance between them and let the ardent kiss he pressed into her eager lips say everything he felt. And if kisses grew deeper, and hands wandered a little in the soft shadows … well, it turned out they could both live with that, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this. It was time to get it posted before I overthought it too much.


End file.
